First published in EG, 28th September 2019
As the sustainability agenda gathers steam, more buildings than ever are implementing smart technology. This technology ranges from placing smart meters in buildings to taking thermal mass into account during the building process, measures which are designed to achieve the best EPC rating possible.
However, many of today’s most sustainably designed buildings have scored much lower than anticipated once in use. According to the UKGBC, there can be as much as a 250% performance gap between an EPC rating and the actual energy performance of a typical building.
Even under the best-case scenario, the performance gap between the modelled performance reported on the EPC and the actual performance can be as large as 80%. The cause? The very tenants that reside inside the building. Occupiers are not using their buildings as efficiently as possible, rendering many sustainable buildings not very sustainable at all.
Sustainable Design
We do not have to see the green roofs in London and Paris to know that sustainable design practices have impacted the property industry at every level. Construction businesses in the UK are taking pains to minimise construction waste and source materials sustainably, but eco-conscious builders take these practices one step further. Increasing insulation prevents heat from escaping buildings quickly, as does making windows and doors airtight. Many buildings are now built in consideration of thermal mass, allowing the building to regulate temperatures easily.
Whilst these initiatives are important parts of reducing the carbon footprint of the built environment, much of their efficacy comes down to tenant use, and it is here that sustainability methods falter. Occupiers overusing specially designed HVAC systems often override all positive effects of the system. UK occupiers are some of the worst offenders when it comes to inefficient use of air conditioning - Daikin sell more wall controllers in the UK than they do in the rest of the world combined.
The same is true of tenants opening windows whilst using the heating, using smart energy meters in a decidedly unintelligent way, or installing an incorrect fixture where a more sustainable one was intended. The best way to ensure that a building that has been designed to be sustainable remains sustainable, is to remove control from the users. However, what impact does this have on wellbeing?
It is also not an uncommon occurrence to find buildings that have been constructed incorporating sustainable technologies such as combined heat and power (CHP) or biomass boilers, that are then never used. There can be many reasons for this, including equipment being wrongly specified in the first place and not being able to provide a suitable load once the building is in use, not being able to source or store biomass fuel or simply that no-one knows how to use it.
Often it’s not a technical issue at all – funds may be available within a capital budget to install a renewable or low energy technology, but then there is no money within the operational budget to use it. Landlords and tenants need to work together better to ensure that refurbishments and fit-outs create zero carbon buildings. These are artificial barriers that can be removed by looking carefully at contracts and thinking through the, perhaps unintended, consequences of the interests of the various stakeholders involved at different stages in a building’s lifecycle being incompatible.
Performance Measurement
True sustainability cannot be achieved without collecting data. Put simply, if you don’t know where you’re starting from, there’s no way to know where you’re going. However, too much information becomes meaningless, therefore we as an industry must determine the right information to gather and how to use it.
Much of the data we need to collect surrounds the way that occupiers, both commercial and residential, interact with the buildings they live and work in. Usage studies must be the way forward, to identify the most unsustainable practices. The findings of these surveys will help us determine whether the occupier who opens windows whilst blasting the air conditioning has a carbon footprint equal to the occupier who does not utilise smart technology at all. These surveys also serve to identify the methods that are most truly sustainable, allowing designers and construction professionals alike to focus on the methods that are most effective and most likely to achieve buy-in from occupiers.
Barriers to Change
True change is difficult to impact in any industry, and the property industry is no exception. We are used to what we know, and unfortunately, the most sustainable solution is not always the most obvious or straightforward one.
Various commitments have been made by local and central governments to be net zero carbon between 2038 and 2050. In the absence of legislation, the main focus is currently on targeting individual behaviour. This emphasis on the individual - asking people to make or accept changes that compromise their comfort, runs the risk of significant backlash without evidence that large institutions are sharing in the burden.
However, the fact remains that the world is on fire, and the flames are licking our collective doorstep. Just this summer, we have experienced some of the most devastating environmental impacts that the world has ever seen. Tropical storms are growing in strength and size. Glaciers are disappearing. The Amazon is burning to the ground.
Individual actions matter; the largest barrier to sustainability when it comes to use is changing the deeply-seated habits of a building’s occupiers. Because changing habits also changes thinking, and to be really effective, those actions must aggregate into pressure on those who can make the biggest systemic changes – governments, councils and landlords.